A place where writers who love crime fiction and horror can discuss different facets of writing, and the various components that make up a story. Readers are more than welcome too. Let's discuss what you like to see in these tales of mystery, suspense and terror. Included also will be news about upcoming contests, links to great crime, noir, and horror tales, and a review or two.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

The challenge this week was to write a horror story that
included the following words: Cafeteria, keyboard, segment, washing machine,
and chandelier. My story shows we need to be careful what we wish for…

The Wish

“Ricky, I am sick of eating in that cafeteria down the
street. There’s enough food here to feed a small city, but I’m not allowed to
eat any of it. My aunt said her protector told her no one was permitted to consume
the food except her, although I may partake of a segment of a dessert item.
Partake of a segment? Who talks like that? I’m telling you, she gets nuttier by
the minute. I can’t wait for that stupid nurse of hers to leave so I can get
rid of that old biddy once and for all.”

“Her protector? She has a bodyguard?”

“No. Her protector is some spirit thing she conjured up. It
gives her advice and protects her.”

“That’s wild. Why is her nurse leaving?”

“She found some dope to marry her, so she’ll be moving out. Besides,
Aunt Lucy can get around better now since her surgery, and won’t need a
full-time nurse anymore. She told me she was glad I came to live with her after
mom and pop died in the accident. Fool thinks I’m going to take care of her.”

“Jen, she never suspected you had anything to do with your
parents’ death even though she knew you hated them?”

“Of course not. No one ever suspected I was the one who cut
their brake lines. I cried so convincingly when they notified me that their car
couldn’t stop and went over the cliff. The cops are still investigating my old
man’s business partner.”

“Don’t you think they’d look at you when they find out your
wealthy aunt is dead?”

“Don’t worry about that. She’s old and nutty as a fruitcake.
No one is going to suspect anything if she takes a tumble down that staircase
in her house. Besides, I’ll just turn on the tears again. I’ll wait a day or
two after her nurse leaves, and then good old Auntie Lucy is going to have a
terrible accident. Once she’s in the ground, you can move in. Then, we’ll just
wait for her lawyer to hand over the bank accounts to me.

“I should probably hang up now. Her nurse will be down soon
to make Aunt Lucy’s dinner. I’ll call you when it’s over. You know, sometimes I
wish I could get inside her skin to fool everyone and cash a check and get my
hands on some money now. Wouldn’t that be a kick?”

“If only. But, I’d want you to get back into your own skin
right after. I wouldn’t want to have to put my hands on that dried up body of
your aunt’s!”

“Good one, Ricky. I’m going to head over to Kenny’s
Kafeteria. The special tonight is meatloaf. Lucky me. Bye for…what the Hell was
that?”

“What’s wrong?

“I heard something behind me. Ever since I got here, I’ve
felt like someone’s always looking over my shoulder. Then there’s a cold wind that
passes by me here and there, even though the heat’s blasting on high. One time,
I could actually feel hot breath on my neck, but when I turned around, there
was nothing there. It’s not Aunt Lucy. She’s still spends most of her time in bed,
and her nurse is always with her.”

“Aunt Lucy, I need to wash some clothes, but your washing
machine is broken. You need to call somebody to come and fix it.”

‘Oh no, dear. My protector told me I should close off that
part of the house. Going down those steps into the basement is how I broke my
hip, and he said I shouldn’t risk my safety. Bundle up your clothes and I’ll
call the cleaners. They’ll come pick them up and bring them back when they’re
done. By the way, Jen, I called and had the computer service disconnected today.”

“Why would you do that? The internet is my only contact with
the outside world.”

“Honey, the keyboard was missing some keys and my protector
told me not to replace it. He said anything I needed I could get over the phone.
I didn’t know how to use that thing anyway. I only bought it so my nurse could keep
in touch with her friends and family while she was living here.”

“Screw your protector. I’m going out to eat. You can fix
your own meals from now on because I’m not your servant.”

“Why are you speaking to me this way, Jen? My protector
doesn’t like it when anyone raises their voice to me.”

“I’ll talk to you any way I please. You’d better be in bed
when I get home, old lady, if you know what’s good for you.”

###

“Why is the house all dark? The old crone never turns all
the lights out. Where the switch? Oh, here it is. Great. So now the chandelier
doesn’t work? I can’t reach that thing to put new bulbs in. Maybe Ricky can fix
it when he gets here. Can you hear me, Aunt Lucy? My boyfriend’s coming to live
here with me. Just me, because you won’t be here. Know why? You’ll be dead. You
hear me? Dead. I’m on my way up now and we’re going to take a quick stroll down
the stairs. Well, not we. You’re actually going to take a quick fall down the stairs. What was that? Lucy?
Are you down here? Did you say something?”

Jen felt the room turn icy cold and something sharp dig into
her shoulder. When she turned around, standing in front her was a creature
straight out of a nightmare. It stood upright on two legs, and Jen estimated
its height at about 9 feet. It had two arms and hands, and each hand had five
fingers, each with sharp claws on the tip. One of its hands rested on her
shoulder. Its skin was scaly, and it had a muscular build. Its large face resembled
that of a wolf, with deep set black eyes, and saliva dripped from its fangs as
it spoke.

“The lady of the house is dead. She passed on in her sleep
while you were out.”

“Who…what the Hell are you?”

“I was Miss Lucy’s protector.”

“You’re real? I thought she…”

“I know what you thought. I know all about you, and what you
had planned for her.”

“What are you talking about? I wasn’t going to do anything
to her. Not really. It was all just talk. Please don’t hurt me. Please just let
me leave.”

“It is my plan to grant your wish.”

“My wish? What did I wish for?”

###

“She was so young. First, Miss Lucy passes in her sleep,
then her niece suffers a massive heart attack. Terrible tragedy."

“It truly is. I stopped by that evening to check on her
because no one was answering the phone. That’s when I found them both. I do
have to say, Mr. Harper, I’ve never seen an expression on a dead body like the
one I saw on the face of that young woman. Even in death, the look of abject
terror remained. With Lucy’s only living relative now deceased, what will happen
to her home?”

“As her attorney, I can tell you she recently changed her
will and left everything to a group of ladies she was close to, who call
themselves Friends of the Other World. They conduct séances and are fascinated
with ghosts and that sort of thing. Miss Lucy told me she had been advised to
cut her niece out of her will. She wouldn’t say by whom though.”

“Interesting. Let’s go pay our final respects to Miss Lucy
and her niece.”

###

“Lucy really looks at peace, doesn’t she, Doctor?”

“She does indeed, sir. Do you have to get back to your
office? May I buy you a cup of coffee?”

“I would appreciate it.”

###

“Where is everybody? Is someone there? You’ve got to help
me. Please. Can’t you hear me? I’m not dead. Not exactly. My body might be, but
I’m in here. I’m in Aunt Lucy’s body. I don’t know what’s going on. The thing –
her protector, it heard me wish to be in her skin, and now I am. Forever. No.
Please don’t close the coffin. You can’t put me in the ground with her. Listen.
For the love of God. Why can’t you hear…”

Thursday, April 21, 2016

The prompt this week was to write a story that is set in a
hospital. My story is about a doctor who tries to do the right thing.

First, Do No Harm…

What a week this has been. There’s no telling how my weekend
will turn out though. It all began with me being assigned to the hospital’s
research department. I would be reviewing studies that have been done here.
None were currently on-going, but clinical research has always interested me,
and I was grateful to be able to review the records. I was hoping information
would be available showing whether the drugs had received FDA approval, and if
we were utilizing any of them.

Mossville Memorial Hospital is a small institution, but Dr.
Martin Harcourt, Chief of Medical Staff, still contacted pharmaceutical
companies and volunteered to be Principal Investigator on drug trials that would
require a small group of participants. There were usually no more than 50
patients in this hospital on any given day, but their diagnoses and medical
histories varied greatly, so occasionally, clinical trials fit in nicely with
the population.

I was born and raised in Mossville, and Dr. Harcourt had
always taken care of everyone in town. When I was a boy, the closest hospital
had been 75 miles away in Brownfield, and Dr. Harcourt was always talking about
how some of his patients’ lives could have been saved had a hospital been
closer. Through his efforts obtaining state funding and using some of his own
finances, Mossville Memorial was built and became fully operational within a
few short years.

Perhaps we didn’t have all the modern equipment hospitals in
large cities had, but patients could be treated and sent on their way, or if
necessary, stabilized and prepared for the trip to whichever big-city hospital
was appropriate for their emergent situation. Dr. Harcourt’s level of caring was
what being a small town physician was all about, and what inspired me to want
to complete my residency, and open my own private practice, here.

The study files were stored in the basement. I discovered a
box under some pipes that contained a protocol about an investigational drug to
treat respiratory infections, and notes confirming patients had been enrolled,
but no records. I decided to check with Marie Shumbert, an R.N., who had been
working here since the hospital opened. If anything did, or did not, happen at
Mossville Memorial, Marie knew about it.

“That one was a disaster,” Marie said. “Dr. Harcourt worked
on studies by himself, so he would have to give you the details. He enrolled
four people, but before long, one by one, they had a stroke at home that left
them unable to move or speak.

“Dr. Harcourt said it had nothing to do with the study drug.
He said it had helped with their breathing. But, since everyone in the study
had been admitted to the hospital, he couldn’t continue. He told me to box it up
and put it in storage.”

That made no sense. The protocol said it was a Phase I
trial, which is done only to determine safe dosage levels – not treat the
condition. There were no consent documents or patient records. What had he been
doing to these people? Since Marie was loyal to her boss, I decided to tread
lightly.

“Marie, do you remember their names? I’d like to contact
their friends or family to get their current status.”

“I can give you their names, but that’s as far as you can go.
After they were admitted, they all developed an infection no antibiotic could
tackle. They lapsed into coma, their organs failed, and they all died. It was
upsetting that the same thing happened to them all.”

Upsetting? What’s upsetting, Miss Marie, is that no one
questioned Harcourt’s findings. What I found even more disturbing was the
identity of the participants. One was Harcourt’s ex-wife, Jeanine. Even though
they weren’t married at the time, it didn’t seem ethical to enroll her in a
trial he was conducting. The other woman and the two men in the study were hospital
employees. Sally Vanderlin was a Lab Assistant, Jack Sterling, a Pharmacist,
and Thomas Coulter worked in Maintenance. I decided to do a bit more digging about
the strokes and untreatable infections that affected only those four before I
confronted the man about his questionable recruitment practices.

I began with ex-Mrs. Harcourt’s sister, who had lived next
door to the Harcourts, and who was more than willing to speak ill of the dead.

“Jeanine was a whore. She was lucky to be married to a
doctor and what did she do? Fooled around with the Hospital’s Pharmacist. She
told me she didn’t start up with him while she was married, but she was lying,
and I told Dr. H all about it.

“It didn’t take long for her to catch something from that man
she was whoring with. Dr. H left after visiting her on a Tuesday morning, and I
found her that afternoon on her back, staring into space. Same thing happened
to her boyfriend the next day. Within a week, they were both dead. Serves them right.”

I thanked her for her candor and quickly made my exit. Dark
and terrifying puzzle pieces were beginning to fit together all too well. Was
Jack Mrs. Harcourt’s lover? Was it possible the doctor cooked up some killer
bug in the Lab under the guise of research with Sally’s help? If so, why did
she have to die too? How did Thomas fit into all this? Was he cleaning up one
night and saw or overheard something he shouldn’t have? Did the physician I’ve
looked up to all my life make these people ill at home, and then finish them
off in the hospital? I had to get back to those files.

Reading through the protocol of Dr. Harcourt’s ill-fated
drug trial confirmed my suspicions. That’s why there were no consents or
charts. The protocol was phony. Some of the language seemed legitimate, but overall,
it made no sense. It read as if parts of it had been copied from other
protocols he found online. He made up the story about the study in case someone
saw him near his victims’ homes. That was where he administered the drug to
bring on the stroke-like symptoms. I tried not to think of the pain and fear
they must have felt while their bodies were being ravaged by infection and
their organs were unable to continue functioning until mercifully, brain death
occurred, and their self-appointed executioner pulled the plugs.

“My God,” I said. “Harcourt, you monster.”

I felt the needle
stick in the back of my neck. I turned to see Dr. Harcourt standing behind me
holding a syringe, as the room began fading to black.

“Just relax,” he said. “It will all be over soon.”

When I opened my eyes and tried to look around, I couldn’t turn
my head. I knew I was lying down, and judging by all the white that surrounded
me, I knew I was in a room at the hospital.

“The machine is breathing for you,” Dr. Harcourt said. “I’ve
given you a little cocktail I dreamed up that immobilized you, but you will be
able to see, hear, and feel. Too bad you had to be so curious; although, I
always told my students to keep asking until they found the truth. By the way,
the truth is that I did kill them all. I had to. If people in town found out my
wife was having an affair with someone in my
hospital, they would have laughed at me.

“At first, Sally thought we were developing a harmless
sedative, but she figured out the solution was deadly, and threatened to expose
me. I used the same drugs on her that I just gave you, and took her home. I
knew her roommate would find her. Later, the janitor said he saw me inject her
and wanted money to keep quiet. I told him I’d bring the cash to his apartment.
I’m sure you know what I brought instead. My ex and her boyfriend were the
easiest – an at-home visit for my drug study.

“I’m going to inject the virus now, as I did with the four
of them. I’ll be back later with morphine which should ease some of your pain. It
wouldn’t give me pleasure to see you suffer.
Sorry it had to come to this. You had such a bright future ahead of you.”

He emptied the syringe with the deadly virus into the IV line
he’d set up next to my bed. I assumed he left when the deed was done. Why hang
around? The bacteria was capable of killing me all on its own.

So, here we are, right back where we began. I can’t push the
call button or scream. Being the physician of record, Harcourt can write
whatever he wants on my death certificate. Neat and clean. Free and clear. All
I can do now is wait. Wait, and pray for a miracle, or morphine…

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

The prompt this week was to write a story about someone with
a thirst for revenge. Is seeking revenge wrong? I guess it depends on your perspective...

Never Forget

“You don’t understand Officer, he did it. Maybe I didn’t see
him destroy my son’s bicycle, but I know he’s responsible. He threatened me and
my son. Why can’t you arrest him?”

“Mrs. Cooper, I can’t arrest someone without any evidence
that they committed a crime. You say he threatened you and your son. What kind
of threats did he make?”

“My son and I were in the yard. That horrid man started
yelling over the fence that my son was a criminal and should be sent to prison.
He called me filthy names and said I was a poor excuse for a mother. He said he
came home from the store and found his flowers trampled and knew my son had
done it. Then he said the only way to teach a punk like him a lesson would be
to destroy something that was important to him.

“An hour or so later, I took him to his baseball practice.
When we got home, we found his bike in the driveway and the tires were slashed
and the handlebars were all bent up. Officer, my son is 7 years old. Aren’t
there laws to protect a child from people like that?”

“Yes, there are, but I can’t arrest him without proof. If
you could catch him in the act or get him on video, we’d be able to arrest him
then. In the meantime, if he causes you any more problems, you give us a call,
all right?”

“I’ll call if he bothers us again. I wish you could just take
him away. Ever since he moved in next door, he’s done nothing but harass us.”

“Some folks are like that ma’am. It’s like they think the
whole world is against them.”

* * * * *

That bitch next door called the police on me. She’s the one
with the pint-sized hoodlum of a son and she’s got the nerve to report me to
the cops? I’ll get her for this. I already got even with her creep of a kid.
She loves that lawn set on her patio that was just delivered. I wonder how much
she’ll love it after I douse it with gasoline and toss a lit match on it. She
thinks it’s perfectly all right for that boy of hers to wait until I go into
town and then come into my yard and jump up and down on all my freshly-planted
flowers.

I knew this would happen again. People are so jealous of the
nice things I have, so they send over their rotten kids to make a mess and
destroy my property. But, I fix them. I always fix them, the little bastards. I
poured motor oil all over that swing and slide set the boy across the street
played on every day. That little beast threw a rock through my bedroom window
in the back of the house.

That nasty little girl next door on the other side tried to
sell me cookies, and when I told her to get lost, she came back at night and
broke my porch light. When I went out to get my morning paper, I cut my foot on
the broken glass. I fixed her good though. I slashed all the tires on that
buggy she pushes her doll around in and cut up the face on that stupid looking
doll too.

Why is it that no matter where I live, people are out to make
my life miserable? Well, it doesn’t matter who they are or what they do. They
will never get the best of me because I will always fix them first. I don’t
have to see them do these things either – I just know. I can tell by the way
they look at me in the stores or in the diners in town. When I come home and
find something broken or messed up, I know exactly who did it because I remember
the look. They can’t fool me. No one has ever been able to fool me. No matter
what anybody does to me, I always fix them for it. Always.

* * * * *

“Wake up, Walter. Wake up.”

What’s going on? I hurt everywhere. Why is my face bandaged?
I can’t move. What is this place? It looks like an operating room. What am I
doing in a hospital?

“You’re not going to be able to talk, Walter, but you can
listen, so listen carefully, and I will explain everything. You are in a
make-shift operating room and have had extensive surgery performed. Don’t worry
though. It was all done by a friend of mine who is a licensed physician. Once I’m
finished with you, I will notify the authorities where you are so you can complete
your recovery, but I’ll be long gone. You’ll never be as you were, but that is
as it should be. You see, both your hands, your feet and your tongue have been
removed.

“Stop making all that noise, Walter. I have much to tell
you. Take a good look. Do you recognize me? It’s been a long time. We were in
fifth grade together. That’s right, Walter. I’m Daniel Hastings. Do you also remember
my sister, Leona? You know, the one whose life you destroyed? I’m sure you
remember everything that happened. I’ve never forgotten a single second of it.

“Someone told our teacher you cheated on a test, and planted
a note in your desk with the answers written on it that you supposedly got from
a student in the sixth grade. Your parents were notified and they wouldn’t let
you go on the class trip. Word went around that you couldn’t be trusted and the
next three years at school were Hell for you. The teachers didn’t like you and
the other kids didn’t want to be caught talking to you so they wouldn’t be
accused of cheating. That girl who liked you, Mattie, told you Leona did it and
you believed her.

“You launched a campaign of terror against my sister after
that. You never asked around or checked further, you just believed what Mattie
told you. Well, guess what, Walter. Leona didn’t do it – Mattie did. She saw
you helping my sister with her lessons and wanted to hurt you both. She planted
the test answers in your desk, left an anonymous note on the teacher’s desk
accusing you and told you Leona was responsible for all of it. I believe that’s
when your lifelong desire to seek revenge against any and all began. But you
see, Walter, it was all based on a lie. You ended up marrying Mattie years
later, and it was she who had wronged you all along.

“Leona killed herself, Walter. She couldn’t take your
following her around, pushing her down, leaving notes in her locker telling her
she was ugly and that everyone hated her, and all the other terrible things you
did to her. One evening when our parents and I were asleep, Leona left the
house and walked down to the station and waited for the 11:00pm freight train.
When it was close, she jumped onto the tracks. You wore her down. She was ten
years old, Walter. She was ten years old.

“It’s been me all these years, you see, throwing rocks
through your windows, smashing your porch lights, pulling up your flowers. I’ve
followed you wherever you’ve gone and waited. I waited for you to investigate
or call the police or install a camera, or do something other than
automatically blame whoever was around. If you had done any of that, I would
have walked away from all this and let you be because for the first time, you
would have done what a normal person would do. But you couldn’t do something
normal, could you, Walter? You blamed the children and took your anger out on
them, even though they never did anything to you. Just like what you did to my
sister. Just like you did to Leona.

“Are those tears running down your cheeks, Walter? It’s a
bit late for that, don’t you think? All the pain you’ve caused to so many
people over the years and for what? So you could get revenge on them for what
you think they had done? We all have things go wrong in our lives, but we move
on – we get past it. You never learned how to do that, did you, Walter?

“Now, you won’t be able to step on and break any more toys,
or scream profanities at any more toddlers, or throw bricks through anyone else’s
picture windows. Your crusade for revenge against the world is finished, Walter,
and I am finished with you. Rest in peace, Leona, because now you can.”

Thursday, April 7, 2016

The prompt this week was to write a science fiction story
using one of the listed sentences to start our story. The sentence I chose is
highlighted. Please enjoy.

A New World

I crouched behind the
counter trying not to make a sound. I had already stockpiled a lot of
canned goods, but I decided to try to find more cans of soup. I expected some
of my neighbors might still be seeking provisions, but saw no one. I found a case
of cans of chicken noodle soup by the loading dock at Gabby’s Grocery. Suddenly,
I heard them coming. Those carts they rode around in were noisy as hell. I ran
back to the front and ducked down in the Customer Service area. They didn’t
seem to be able to see through walls, so I knew if I was quiet, they would move
on and look elsewhere for stragglers. It would be tough getting that soup back
to my hideout without being seen, but I had to try. If I was going to survive
until they were gone, I needed all the supplies I could gather.

Just because people in my town believed their lies and lined
up to board their spaceships like lambs to the slaughter, that didn’t mean I
was stupid enough to join in. I had told my friends and neighbors about the episode
on The Twilight Zone called To Serve Man. The aliens intended to serve man all
right – for dinner. I didn’t say our current visitors planned to do the same,
but I tried to point out how hokey their story sounded. They said they came
across the vast expanse of space to save us from this wasteland of our own
making and to relocate us to a new world where we could again thrive.
Ridiculous, right? Well, people I had believed were rational beings fell for it
hook, line and sinker.

They’ve been here almost a month, and are loading people up
all over the world every day. I have to
admit they look like us, which is probably why they’re able to fool so many. If
they were 12 feet tall, had three heads, claws and a tail, we’d probably have
tried to blow them up as soon as they landed. Everyone in my subdivision saw the
lights in the sky and one after the other setting down. It was just like the
movie War of the Worlds when the aliens landed in groups. Their ships are huge,
and while I’m not sure how many people each one can hold, everyone in my town
went inside one, and they were still going around in their carts looking in the
neighboring towns for more to fill it.

When they first arrived, they announced that we all should
gather in the town square. It was there they informed us about their mission.
They said they monitored inhabited planets, and when its natural resources were
nearly depleted, they relocated the residents to another planet for a fresh
start. According to the Friends of the Universe - that’s what they called themselves,
this is a role they had chosen for themselves. Their world was rich in natural
resources that they valued and maintained. Unfortunately, other civilizations
wasted and destroyed, and in doing so, destroyed themselves.

That’s where they came in. If they could get to the
inhabitants in time, they’d launch a rescue effort. Depending on the size of
the planet’s population, as many transports as needed were deployed, and all
were loaded up and moved to another suitable planet. Provisions and temporary
shelter were provided until the new residents got on their feet. Then they were
left to flourish, or fail again, on their own, and the cycle continued. As
touching and inspirational as that sounded, I knew it was a bunch of crap.
We’ve been on Earth for millions of years and screwed up plenty, but they show
up out of nowhere now?

I have to admit we’re in pretty bad shape at the moment. We’ve
had some wars that really hurt Mother Earth. There are a few areas where the
air is not breathable, the ground is barren, and the water is polluted beyond
repair. But, we’ve been through hard times before and have always been able to
clean up after ourselves. I can’t accept that there’s no hope for me and my
fellow man, other than to desert our world and allow it to be used as a place
for punishment. That’s the other reason they’re evacuating us, by the way.
Earth will be turned into a prison.

We were told dying planets are often used to house those
banished from their home planet due to violation of the local law. Others
remove the elderly and infirm from their homes and resettle them, so to speak,
on a distant star. Planets that are unable to sustain any form of life are used
solely as landfills. However, any planet that has at least tolerable air and
water, and the use of either or both would not result in immediate death, would
be deemed appropriate for criminals and the aged. And I had always believed admitting
a family member into a nursing home was cruel.

I managed to dodge their patrols and made it safely back to
my refuge. The residents of the house I was hiding in had gone willingly with
our self-proclaimed saviors, so I decided to move in. I kept the curtains
drawn, the doors and windows locked, except for a few small upstairs windows to
let some air in, polluted that it was. I knew they’d make their exit soon since
they informed us their time here was limited by the alignment of various stars.
A month of our time was all the time they had to clear our world of human life.
At least Noah took along two of each member of the animal kingdom in his Ark.
These new friends of ours were leaving behind land and sea creatures alike.
Bastards.

Once all their ships took off, I’d be free to move about in
the open and begin my life anew. The world outside wasn’t very welcoming, but I
would be on my own and not spending the rest of my life in some cage waiting to
be dissected or placed in a pot with carrots and potatoes. Even if what they
said about other creatures being dumped off here to serve time was true, I was a
man – the superior species, and I would triumph. I would be King and they would
be my subjects. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I knew
I had to get the upper hand right from the start, but I could handle some old
whatever they were with my hands tied behind my back. And criminals? I had
access to all the guns and weapons this world had to offer. No one was going to
get the better of me.

My fantasy about making the world mine was shattered when I
heard their announcement right outside where I was hiding. They knew where I
had been, but deliberately avoided confronting me until now. How decent of
them.

“Daniel,” one of them said. “A moment of your time, if you
please.”

We’re on a first name basis now. How civil. I looked through
the living room window, and there were six of them on the front lawn, all
sitting in their transports. I’d had enough of these cat and mouse games. It
was time to make my stand. I stepped out onto the front porch.

“If I please? Stop all this pretending. Why don’t you just
kill me and get it over with.”

“We didn’t come here to harm anyone, Daniel. Everything
we’ve told the people of your world was true. Earth can no longer sustain life
for so many. Your fellow creatures are happy in their new world. Please come
with us now. We can no longer delay. You are the last.”

“No. Go ahead and take off, you liars.”

“Understand that once we leave, we cannot return. This world
will be the property of the new owners and they…”

He received a message through his headset I couldn’t hear.

“I’m sorry for you, Daniel. We must leave now.”

Sorry for me? That was rich. They rode away toward the north
end of town. A few minutes later, I saw the flashes of light as their last ship
took off. I had called their bluff. The whole world was now mine for the
taking.

Two days later, the new owners arrived and began setting up buildings
to house their prisoners. So, our Friends of the Universe had been telling the truth
after all. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but Earth’s new landlords were 12 feet
tall, had three heads, claws and a tail. When I walked over to a group of them
to introduce myself as the King of Earth, one of them grabbed me, dragged me into
one of the buildings they had constructed, and dropped me into a large pot with
carrots and potatoes. Damn.

About Me

I am a writer, who has had two crime fiction novels, a six-part children's fantasy series. and a poetry collection published by DiskUsPublishing, stories published in various anthologies, as well as flash pieces on various ezines. My current projects include two crime fiction novels.

obit.: Pure Slush, Vol. 6

gorge: Pure Slush, Vol. 4

Notausgang: Emergency Exit, Pure Slush, Vol. 2

The Lost Children Charity Anthology

Inside (currently out of print; seeking new publisher)

An up close and personal look at that crazy carnival ride we call life -- with all its sunlight and shadows. A Poetry Collection

My Crime Thriller (currently out of print; seeking new publisher)

A timid and naive man, dominated personally and professionally by his wife and father-in-law, who is desperate for a friend and confidante of his own, unwittingly allows himself to be drawn into a deadly game of chance by a cunning predator

My Crime Thriller (currently out of print; seeking new publisher)

It's always nice to have a new neighbor settle in - one who is hard-working and proficient at his craft. That is, unless he's a serial killer...

The Favor (Noir Short)

Finders Keepers (Noir Short)

Byline (Crime Fiction Short)

A Gentleman Caller (Crime Short)

My Goodreads

Florida. The sunshine state. A land of oranges, theme parks, and hundreds of miles of beaches. In this land of endless summers and crystal blue water, people are dying in ways the likes of which the local police have never seen. Each dea...

This is a book that anyone and everyone who enjoys a wild ride must read. The characters are beyond unique, the primary setting is beyond imagination and the story? Whoa! This story will snatch you up right from the start and then tw...

This was the first book by this author that I've read, but I intend to look for others. I signed up for his newsletter so I can be notified of new releases.
This story was very dark and super creepy. The characters were presented so c...

Hardly Thrillers
If you are looking for a collection of thrillers, I would recommend looking elsewhere. There are a couple of stories that are very good and are quite disturbing, which I feel thrillers should be. But the majority of t...